Wins via strikes are, however, and that’s exactly what Rousey got Saturday night in the main event of UFC 170 at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay, defeating challenger Sara McMann at the 1:06 mark of the first round to defend her Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s bantamweight title.

The 27-year-old Rousey (9-0) defended her title for the third time in handing McMann (7-1) her first career loss, as the Glendale Fighting Club-trained champion crumpled McMann with a left knee to the body and followed with a barrage of punches that brought upon a stoppage from referee Herb Dean.

“We studied her videos and we noticed no one ever really tried to hit her to the body,” Rousey said in her postfight interview in the octagon. “We felt like it was the best thing to concentrate on the liver shot for this camp.”

The bout wasn’t without controversy, as many thought the stoppage came too soon as it appeared McMann, who was on all fours as she took right hands from Rousey, was getting up and was not damaged enough to have the fight stopped.

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“I thought it was a good fight, I got hit in the liver and no matter how hard you train it’s not like you can get your liver stronger,” McMann said in the octagon. “I just look forward to going back to the drawing board. I hope to get a rematch and come back in here and put on a better fight.”

McMann, long revered as a class act and soft-spoken, hesitated in placing blame on Dean for the stoppage.

“I was trying to get back up, but it was my own fault, if you see a fighter drop, he has to protect us,” McMann said. “It was my own fault, I should’ve got back up to my feet quicker.”

Word had spread in Rousey’s training camp, under GFC’s Edmond Tarverdyan, that she had been dropping sparring partners with punches to the liver, but it was her knee that floored McMann.

Still, Rousey, who had been resoundingly booed after she defeated archrival Miesha Tate in her last fight and refused to shake Tate’s hand in the aftermath, drew plenty of cheers coming into the fight, but was once more booed at the conclusion, likely due to the controversial stoppage.